


Jealousy is a crutch.

by be_a_rebel



Series: Brothers!AU [4]
Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Felching, Incest, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Pegging, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_a_rebel/pseuds/be_a_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter wants to punish Neal for Alex, for all the others, the names Neal's forgotten but Peter remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jealousy is a crutch.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own White Collar.  
> A/N: Title is a quote by C. Astrid Weber.

The first time Peter meets Alex, Neal walks into El's favourite breakfast place holding her hand.

Peter's glad El couldn't make it. He doesn't think she could have handled this without preparation.

He barely manages himself.

*

Alex lasts the longest.

It's the longest six months of his life.

Peter admires her, despite himself. It's difficult, near impossible to keep Neal interested for that long. She is sharp and nimble, quick and quiet in turns and Neal is off balance and infatuated, it's so obvious.

Neal keeps his hand on her knee for three minutes at dinner one night and El is pale, transparent and her smile is fixed and dead and Peter is cut up more for her than himself because he's loved Neal for so long that Neal's others don't hurt anymore, they roll off him like water off a duck.

If water was acid.

El is new to it, the process of loving Neal, the affection and exasperation in turns.

The worry, the fear, the terror.

It's new to her, sharp and hard and she's in pain all the time, the way he used to be, the way he was before he met her and kissed her smiling mouth and knew some part of him would heal. Even if all of him never could.

Peter can forgive Neal for all he's done to him.

Forgiving him for the silent months with El is much harder.

*

It's actually hard to hate Alex. Peter wants to and El does, to some extent but it's hard to hate a woman who is beautiful and makes Neal smile.

Even if she gets to touch him in ways Peter never can.

He catches them in Neal's office once, after hours.

Neal's shirt is unbuttoned and he's kissing her mouth like he has all the time in the world and her hand is on his waistband, her mouth curved in a smile and Peter feels this horrifying certainty that she'll become a permanent fixture and they'll all have to live like this forever, on the edge of a cliff that they can't jump off of.

Peter watches until the sound of a zip being lowered is heard.

There's only so much he can take.

*

Part of him knows he's punishing Neal for those six months and the rest of his life, for all the days El didn't smile.

He knows what Neal wants and he wants to give it to him, he does, he wants to be inside Neal, he's thought about it all his life and he wants to bruise Neal's shoulders and break him, he wants to wipe all the men Neal's been with from Neal's memory because this was his, it was supposed to be his and Neal's made him wait all these years, Neal's made him sorry.

Peter wants to punish Neal for Alex, for all the others, the names Neal's forgotten but Peter remembers.

Peter's been jealous for so long that the feeling of not being jealous is wholly alien to him, unreal, as if he's been cut adrift.

He knows, objectively, that Neal has hated too, seen Peter with attention elsewhere and hurt but El has been Neal's from the start as well, they've shared her and it isn't the same, not the same at all, as Neal with his mouth on others, hand tight in their hair, men and women who smiled at Neal the way men and women do because it's impossible not to want Neal, not to want to keep him forever.

Peter's loved his brother all his life and he's never been able to make himself stop wanting. He doesn't blame the people who can legitimately have him.

He blames Neal though, for all of it.

He still remembers George, quiet admiration in the kid's eyes. He remembers the way Neal used him, used the awe and the want and kept him on his fingertips for days and he'd feel pity for George if Neal hadn't sucked him off, slowly, for an hour in Peter's car.

Neal still thinks Peter doesn't know all of it, all the times Neal has fucked people in Peter's office, against his desk, on his carpet. All the girls he's made scream with his mouth and fingers when El was his for the asking.

All the boys he's kissed and brought off with his hands and his mouth. The names he's said instead of Peter's.

All the men he's allowed to fuck him, tie him up, bring him off.

Peter hates Neal some nights, mostly for El but sometimes for himself.

He's selfish but his selfishness has kept Neal alive and around and he won't apologise for it.

*

Alex left because Neal withdrew the way he always does and he fucked her over and lied to her and left her adrift.

Peter realized he didn't, couldn't hate her then. She was one of them now, the people who want Neal Caffrey but can't ever really have him.

Peter has always thought that there were two kinds of people in the world. The kind that want his brother and the kind that have him. The second category has a time limit.

He puts Alex on a ship (She likes boats because Neal likes boats. It's amazing the way people adapt for Neal. He has.)

She stares at him and he thinks she's beautiful, he always has. He thinks that in another life they could have been friends, insulted each other and had coffee once a week and secretly admired one another. He thinks they could have worked together, made a team.

He thinks that in a world without Neal there could have been a million possibilities.

He thinks that in a world without Neal, he couldn't have survived.

She smiles at him as if she understood it all, all of it and didn't care.

She leans forward and kisses him on the edge of his mouth, soft and nimble.

All he can think is that the last person she kissed was Neal. He's one degree of separation from his brother.

He shuts his eyes because Alex deserves more from him, from them.

But everything falls to the wayside where Neal is concerned.

*

Peter is punishing Neal for himself, for El.

Part of him is punishing Neal for Alex, for the look in her eye when she walked away.

Neal has ruined so many people along the way and he's almost ruined Peter as well and he'll get away with all of it because Peter will give in and he'll give Neal everything he wants, he always has and he can't suck Neal's cock and not want to fuck him and El's shown him the dildo she used on Neal the week before and she says Neal's name in bed all the time now and she never washes up when Neal fucks her anymore, she makes Peter come home and clean her up using his mouth, every single time.

She won't let him fuck her until he does.

Peter is strong and he is steady but he can't fight them both, not when Neal is asking for it with every smile and with every moment when he goes to his knees for Peter like he's been doing this all his life, sucking his brother's cock.

Except that he hasn't. Neal is good at this because he's had practice, practice with others.

Peter is a lot of things but he isn't forgiving.

He'll give Neal what he wants because it's what he does, it's the way he works.

But he'll make Neal hurt first. It's what Neal deserves.


End file.
